Many facets of Tottenham Hotspurs ‘ new ground are shameful

While I wish I could say that these blogs are my full time work and provide all the cash I need for a rich and healthy lifestyle that would be to tell a quite enormous lie.

When not bleating about non-league football and trading in obscure soccer facts, I work full-time as a reporter for the Tottenham and Wood Green Independent. I enjoy it very much, not least because on my patch is a contender to be the next Premier League champion, albeit an outsider akin to Rocky Balboa or Mark de Mori.

Tottenham Hotspur are a good club on the whole – relatively welcoming to the press, involved in plenty of community activities, and they’re not doing too badly on the pitch either. Off the pitch, they’re having a good year too – they finally acquired planning permission last December for their new stadium, granted by Haringey Council.

Among the proposals green-lit were a 61,000-seater stadium, an extreme sports centre that could be up to 51ft tall, a 22-storey hotel, 585 houses and a “Tottenham Experience”. This includes a club shop, the ticket office, a cinema, museum, and reception for the “Sky Walk” which will allow people to walk on the stadium roof.

All very nice, you may think. Scratch the surface, however, and there are significant problems.

Out of the 585 dwellings being built, there are zero per cent that are affordable. The lack of affordable housing is in stark contrast to the building of Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, where 1,500 affordable houses and 536 social houses were built. It is, for a major business in any industry in the year 2016, a complete scandal.

It’s not a good project for the history buffs either. Three listed buildings are to be demolished in order to widen the pavement for “crowd safety”. This was decided to be better than temporary road closures and elevated footways. Among the buildings to be demolished are the Dispensary and the Red House, public houses older than the club.

There are also environmental issues – Haringey’s planning policies call for major developments to provide 20 per cent of their energy needs from renewables like solar panels, but Spurs’ plans will only provide 0.3 per cent, less than one sixtieth of the target. This was waived aside casually by the council, which voted through the plans by eight votes to two.

So the stadium will begin construction in due course. The building of the stadium will take place between 8am and 8pm for seven days a week, incidentally. This was also declared acceptable by the council. I have no idea whether any families living nearby had a say in this time frame.

The new Spurs ground has been universally praised by fans and the media, and I am glad that Spurs are staying in Tottenham. It is a much better solution than upping sticks to the Olympic park – it’s bad enough they will be leaving for at least a season to Wembley, or even Milton Keynes.

Yet for a club that prides itself on being at one with one of London’s most deprived communities, there are a lot of facets to Spurs’ new ground that are shameful.

When footballers hit the headlines, it’s usually a case of …Read More »

DavyD

I see you are ignoring the fact that Spurs have already provided a number of social and affordable housing in other developments in the local vicinity. You are also ignoring the fact that 50 White Hart Lane is earmarked for development to provide social and affordable housing element once the stadium build is complete.
I would probably argue anyway that the last thing that North Tottenham really needs is more social housing. The area already has the highest proportion of social housing in Haringey and one of the highest proportions of social housing in the whole of the UK.
Instead of concentrating on a perceived lack of social housing, why not instead concentrate on the number of jobs that the scheme will create? The fantastic new educational facility already provided by THFC or the first class new health centre that is to be provided by THFC as part of the development?

Conor Barry

I totally agree. You will not improve the economic conditions in socially deprived areas by introducing more social housing.This project will bring a number of jobs the area. The Emirates Development was different. Social Housing and those mugs is a match made in Heaven.

Hahahahah!!!

I initially read this article on huff post…and at least on there, Matt Smith is described as what he clearly is (see attached image). I wouldn’t take to much notice of this poorly researched post.

S_J_

This is an absolute joke of an article and joke of a “wannabe journalist.”

Chris

I guess Matt is either just trying to be a “man of the people” or is simply a gooner, perhaps both. There are issues relating to the latest planning consent relating to residents of the High Road and WHL, but they are not covered in the article. As to holding up the Emirates as a model? Well no, permission there was granted on certain conditions including the provision of social housing (£83m worth?) but it was never paid for. A further £17m was supposed to be paid for the upgrade of Holloway Road tube station, again never done – on match days they rotate being able to get off or on! Given that the Emirates is now paid for, that is a shameful story, but of course Matt works for the local paper….

Eddie West

Much of what the article says is true in fairness. I know Spurs fans tend to get extremely butthurt when there is anything remotely negative written about their club. There are good and bad elements to every development like this. Matt Smith just points out some of the more negative ones. Being informed is no bad thing.

Steve

You’re right, being informed is a good thing, but then you have to write fairly about both sides, not just the negative. This is a trolling article designed to get a negative response from Spurs fans, it’s also the lowest form of journalism. Because of this, he will always be a ‘wanna be journalist’ hacking at stories such as this one. Had he added some good points about the stadium build and the local area, he might have been noticed for more that trolling, I know, I am a journalist.

RobD

Misses the point that the WHL development is on the same site as the old stadium when the gooners moved to a new site leaving the highbury cesspit to be developed